MTHS Lessons with Social/Emotional Components

 I've been haunted by the attempted suicide rates that Bill Moe brought to my attention last week, and I applaud all of the classroom teachers who make their students feel valued and loved. You folks are amazing. 

I don't have answers to this crisis. Suicide, and student well-being in general, is very far from my area of expertise, and it borders on hubris to say that MTHS has lessons or materials that can help in this area. Because of this, I almost didn't write this post.  But then I decided, it may not help, but what can it hurt? Here are a few lesson plans that gifted teachers might be able to use to further social/emotional growth in their students. 

• Our Coming to Montana: Immigrants from around the World hands-on history footlocker (designed for 4-6) includes a series of lessons, "Recognizing Similarities and Celebrating Differences," that focuses on helping students recognize that people across cultures share commonalities and that we should recognize similarities and celebrate differences while working to make sure that everyone is accepted. These can be taught without ordering the footlocker if you use a YouTube read-aloud recording to gain access to the book Christmas Menorahs: How a Town Fought Hate. (Find out more about our hands-on history footlockers here.)  
• The Art of Storytelling: Plains Indian Perspectives (designed for K-12) includes art lessons on winter counts (which some Plains tribes used to record their bands' history) and ledger art (which some Plains tribal members used to document individual achievements). Teacher Leader in Montana History Ron Buck uses the ledger art materials from this lesson to have his students celebrate themselves--sometimes accomplishments, sometimes family traditions. Other teachers have used the winter count material as background to create a classroom winter count, rotating record keepers and documenting important class moments each week. They've said this has been great for building class cohesion.
• Reader's Theater: Letters Home from Montanans at War (designed for 7-12) is a three-to-five period unit that asks students to work in groups to read and interpret letters written by soldiers at war, from the Civil War to Operation Iraqi Freedom. After engaging in close reading and conducting research to interpret the letters, they will perform the letters as reader’s theater. When theater teacher Rob Holter's students performed the letters, they walked away believing that history isn't just about the famous and powerful and that they, too, could make a difference and make history. 
• Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things! Connecting Biography to Larger Social Themes Lesson Plan (designed for 8-12) uses essays published on the Women’s History Matters website to help students explore how ordinary people’s lives intersect with larger historical events and trends and to investigate how people’s choices impact their communities. The takeaway of this lesson is that individuals can make choices within the circumstances (even very tough circumstances) that they find themselves. 

I also reached out to former classroom teacher and counselor Jennifer Graham, who has done a lot of work on social/emotional learning. She pointed me toward the OPI website devoted to Whole Child Skill Development. She particularly finds the Whole Child Skill Development Competencies useful as a reference when creating lesson plans.  

She also encourages teachers to incorporate collaborative learning strategies: "Those strategies encourage collaboration while also building classroom communities and skills that support communication (which results in safety and security)." Two sources she suggest on this are "Collaborative Classrooms Support Social-Emotional Learning," published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, and "Cooperative Learning in the Time of C3," published by the National Council for Social Studies.

Jennifer also highly recommends the QPR Institute, whose mission is "to reduce suicidal behaviors and save lives by providing innovative, practical and proven suicide prevention training." 

If you have thoughts on this subject or lessons that teach social studies while helping students develop emotionally and socially that you'd like to share, please send them my way. And, in the meantime, thanks for all you do.